


cup my heart between your hands (don't let go, don't let go)

by noctelle



Category: True Beauty - Yaongyi (Webcomic), 여신강림 | True Beauty (Korea TV)
Genre: (of the drama), Domestic Fluff, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Humor, M/M, New Beginnings, Post-Canon, and i try and make suho acknowledge why he sort of sucks, i just think han seojun deserves the world tbh, jugyeong and suho learn why theyre not good for each other, the stairwell scene.....no!, theyre just soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctelle/pseuds/noctelle
Summary: Suho looks down at his hands, knotted and white-knuckled in his lap, inspects the fraying edges of the Pokémon bandage Seojun had wrapped around his thumb when he’d cut himself making dinner the other night.“It’s cute isn’t it?” he’d said, poking the nose of the little yellow … mouse? and irritating Suho’s cut in the process. “Jugyeong likes these. She can’t name a single one besides Pikachu, but she insists she knows all of them.”Suho thinks about the box of bandaids Jugyeong keeps in the top drawer of her desk, patterned with strawberries because that had always been theirthing.A physical piece of the love they’d built between them as though she’d needed to prove it to herself, that Lee Suho and Lim Jugyeong were meant for eternity.She’s right, he decides. They’re not.
Relationships: Seojun Han/Suho Lee
Comments: 18
Kudos: 207





	cup my heart between your hands (don't let go, don't let go)

The second time is less of a surprise.

They are different people, caught in a different time, a clock with a shattered surface and a hand that _tick, tick, ticks_ over the same few seconds until its cogs wear out and that precious handful of memories becomes just that. Memory. They are moving forward and back, and it hurts, hurts like losing a piece of his tired, careworn heart, when Suho realizes that the only thing keeping him and Jugyeong rooted in the past is their love for one another.

Seojun knows. Seojun has always known. But he is too kind to say anything, loves them too much to ever be the hand that hurts them with hellish truths (only himself; he’s only ever been good at hurting himself), and it is Jugyeong who forces Suho down from the clouds of his empty paradise, Jugyeong who tears it down because Suho has never been strong enough.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and Suho has to fight down the urge to cling to her, to salvage the pieces of something better left in the sunlit days of their youth. “We should’ve known better.”

(Such is the danger with sunlight, bright and gentle and warm, until it blinds you). 

“Jugyeong-ah,” he tries, and she shakes her head.

“No. We shouldn’t have even — this was stupid of us, so _stupid._ We’ve changed, Lee Suho. We’ve changed for the _better,_ and here we are clinging to a high school romance like the world starts and ends with us. Goodness. How Han Seojun must have felt, sending us back to each other so we couldn’t break his heart any slower than we already were.”

Suho looks down at his hands, knotted and white-knuckled in his lap, inspects the fraying edges of the Pokémon bandage Seojun had wrapped around his thumb when he’d cut himself making dinner the other night. 

“It’s cute isn’t it?” he’d said, poking the nose of the little yellow … mouse? and irritating Suho’s cut in the process. “Jugyeong likes these. She can’t name a single one besides Pikachu, but she insists she knows all of them.” 

Suho thinks about the box of bandaids Jugyeong keeps in the top drawer of her desk, patterned with strawberries because that had always been their _thing._ A physical piece of the love they’d built between them as though she’d needed to prove it to herself, that Lee Suho and Lim Jugyeong were meant for eternity. 

She’s right, he decides. They’re not.

(He’s still afraid to let go. How cruel he’s been to Seojun, for never acknowledging his strength, for looking away, away, away, entranced by the light of his sun). 

“I’m sorry,” he’s the one that says it this time. “I’m sorry, Jugyeong-ah.” 

She smiles, sad and frail, honest, because even when she was hiding, Jugyeong had always been bound to the truth. 

“We’ll come back to each other, Lee Suho,” she promises. “As friends. As best friends. We’ll share our comics and our time, and we’ll be good together again. But not like this. This … we weren’t ever supposed to be this, I think.”

The bandage peels beneath his worrying, the colors faded and the residue sticking in all the wrong places. It’s kind of gross. He wonders why he hasn’t taken it off already, why he hasn’t tossed it. He thinks of Han Seojun’s strong, slender fingers, marked with guitar calluses and naturally resting at a curve, like he’s aching to hold a mic. He steals a bit of bravery from the memory of his oldest friend and welds some steel to his spine. 

“I’ll miss it,” he says, “Us. This. I’ll miss you, Lim Jugyeong.” 

“I’ve spent a lot of time missing you, Suho-yah. So, let’s not, okay? Keep moving. Let’s just keep moving, the both of us.” 

There are dreams they have yet to catch up to, dreams Suho has dredged up from the well of his past sorrows, dreams Jugyeong has discovered in her resilience and conviction. Dreams they will make into reality, by releasing the last of their fantasy to the wind.

Jugyeong stands to leave, still in her coat with her bag strapped across her chest, and Suho sees her out, swallowing the urge to call out to her, to beg for _just another five minutes,_ another five minutes to lay in a field of memories and stare up at the sun.

She leaves.

He calls Seojun.

-

“You two are the absolute worst.”

It’s been a week since Jugyeong ended things, and this is the first he’s seen of Seojun, who had finally managed to wedge a free moment for lunch between the constant hustle and bustle of his schedule. They’ve called, every night, Seojun humming something or strumming away at his guitar to fill the silence crushing Suho’s thoughts. 

“Mm,” he sips at his coffee, makes a face and passes it to Seojun, “Too sweet. Drink it slow, though, and with water. Heegyeong-noona will kill me if I let you dehydrate your throat.” 

“Nagging wife,” Seojun mutters, like he had six months ago when Suho had stolen his soda and replaced it with water. “You know, this is all very rich coming from the guy who choked me out with his fancy jiu-jitsu moves before sending me on stage. Aish.” 

“I like hearing you sing, and you wouldn’t back then unless I won it from you. I had to make an exception,” Suho says with a shrug, and, because he chooses the worst moments to be an unbearable sap, tacks on, “Your voice is my treasure, Seojun-ah.”

Seojun stares, coffee half raised to his lips, then does a full-body shudder and sets the cup down to give him a disgusted look.

“The _worst,_ ” he emphasizes.

“How’s Jugyeong?” Suho asks, because he can’t avoid it forever.

Seojun’s fingers tap a slow melody against the chipped wood of the table, a jangled mix of notes from his debut setlist. Suho tries not to think about the last time he’d had those hands on him, picking at the healed skin over his cut. 

“She’s … better,” he says slowly, gauging Suho’s reaction with a cautious, searching look. “She was worse for a bit. Kept talking about calling you and apologizing, but Sooah and Soojin wouldn’t let her. She gave it up when I told her she was right. That you two weren’t good for each other anymore. I’m sorry. Not for telling her the truth. But I’m just — sorry.”

Suho shakes his head.

“Don’t be. You’re right. You were always right, Seojun-ah.” 

Seojun clears his throat, frowns a little in that way that tells Suho he doesn’t quite understand what he means. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t pick up your call,” he says instead of explaining. He doesn’t know how to, anyways. Not yet.

“What?” 

“When I got back to Korea. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up your call.”

He’s sorry for a lot more, and he will spend years making it up to Seojun, though he knows he’s already been forgiven. Seojun’s heart has always been too big for him, even when he tried to protect himself from it, and he gave, gave, gave, keeping little for himself. 

(Suho hadn’t known how to give back, then, so he’d stayed his hand to keep himself from taking, and had ended up shaving away little pieces of Seojun’s heart with every new day of silence. He will put them back together, the two of them, without care for how long it takes. Seojun has borne that burden long enough). 

Seojun rolls his eyes, finishes the last of his coffee and washes it down with water at Suho’s pointed look. 

“I spent three years blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault, Lee Suho. I can handle a few missed phone calls.”

“It wasn’t your fault either,” Suho reminds. Then, because take has always come easier than give, “Come over this weekend? I have something I want you to sing for me.”

Seojun perks up, the soft solemnity that comes with the memories of Seyeon and the years they spent apart locked away in favor of bright-eyed curiosity, a passion for his art that Suho has missed more than he realized. 

_Bunny smile,_ he thinks, Seyeon’s name for the scrunch-nosed little smile Seojun wore when he was genuinely pleased with something, lips pursed and cheeks puffed like a tall, lanky rabbit. 

“You composed something new?” he asks, leaning forward across the table, “Wow, Leo-ssi, I’m honored. Mm, or maybe it’s the other way around? Han Seojun is a household name these days, you know.” 

“As it should be,” Suho says decisively, smiling when Seojun sticks his tongue out, clearly pleased with the praise but unwilling to show it. 

He leaves their meeting in good spirits, a promise tucked into the space between his ribs and his heart; he will see Seojun again before the week is out. 

Seojun has always been better with promises than Suho. 

He texts Jugyeong before sliding into his car, adjusting the mirrors and depositing his phone in the cup beside his seat.

_Thank you, Lim Jugyeong._

Thank you for a kind first love, for a thousand other firsts framed in flowers and bright-cheeked smiles. Thank you for stepping off the cliff’s edge when I was too weak to do it. _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

(Thank you for standing by Han Seojun’s side while he learned and cherished his strengths. Thank you for reminding him how _good_ he is, when no one else did.)

By the time he gets home, there is an unread message waiting in his inbox.

_Be kind to him this time, Lee Suho. I have a lot of inspiration for creative murder if you aren’t (・`ω´・)._

-

He kisses Han Seojun for the first time on a Friday.

Seojun has a rare day off and has spent the morning in makeup stores and cute cafes with Jugyeong and Gowoon. Suho scrolls through the photos he’d uploaded on social media, a selca with Jugyeong and his sister doing silly poses in the background, a few photos of food, and a candid shot that shows off the new earring Jugyeong had bought him. 

There’s a Pokémon band aid on his left pinky. Suho smiles. 

“Yah,” Seojun slouches over to bat at his arm, pushing Suho’s feet off his lap so he can crawl half on top of him to see his screen. “What are you looking at my social media for? I know I’m gorgeous, but you’ve got the real deal right in front of you. Pay attention for once, Suho-yah.”

He lets his phone click shut and drops it on the table, settling more comfortably against the couch with Seojun’s weight on top of him. 

“I am,” he says evenly, wheezing when Seojun rearranges to drive an elbow into his stomach. “ _Han Seojun._ ”

Seojun gives him a wicked little grin, and Suho can’t help himself. He slides a hand up his shoulder, cradles the arch of his nape and tugs gently at the hair there. 

“Han Seojun,” he murmurs, thumb dragging at the dip between his jaw and neck. “Can I kiss you?”

Seojun blinks, once, twice. 

“ _What?_ ”

“Can I kiss you?” Suho repeats, heart thudding away in his chest as he tries to keep his hands steady. 

“ _Why?_ ”

Suho laughs, flicking one of his earrings, shaped like a four-pointed star. 

“Why not?” he asks. 

_I’ve loved you longer than I’ve had the words to say it, Seojun-ah,_ he doesn’t say. _I don’t deserve to stay with you, but I want to anyways. I’ve always been better at greed than you._

He’ll say it one day, he resolves to himself. One day soon, before Seojun convinces himself he can’t have what Suho is slowly learning to give him. 

He chews at his lip, looks down at Suho with a mix of dread and hope and uncertainty, but Seojun has always been good at pushing forward, so he takes a deep breath, balances himself on his forearms, and dips down to press his lips to Suho’s, gentle yet firm. 

It’s good. _So_ good. Suho slides his hands to Seojun’s hips, settles him properly across Suho’s own, and thinks, _so this is what it feels like to have a home._

Seojun’s lips taste like the jjajangmyeon they had for dinner, and Suho chases it when they part for breath, licks it out of his mouth until Seojun is laughing, biting at the curve of his jaw in retaliation. 

“So,” he says, sitting up and dragging Suho with him, “How long have you been wanting to do that?” 

“Longer than I probably should have,” Suho replies, and Seojun scoffs as though he’s feeding him a line.

“You’re so fucking weird,” he says, pinching Suho’s cheek and kissing his forehead when he yelps. “Just take what you want, Lee Suho.” 

Suho hooks his chin over Seojun’s shoulder, presses his lips against a patch of bare skin. 

“You didn’t,” he says quietly. 

Surprisingly, Seojun doesn’t shove him away or clam up and refuse to speak about it.

He just says, “I tried. But it’s not fair to try and take things others don’t want you to take. I had my moment of selfishness, and Jugyeong let me have it because she’s good like that.”

She is. Suho would know. 

“You’re good too,” he says, “Better than me.”

Seojun hides his smile in Suho’s hair, the curve of it warm against his scalp. 

“Maybe,” he allows, “But you’re learning. I’m generous enough to be your handsome, angelic witness and wipe your tears and snot when you fall.” 

Perhaps that is what love is. It’s not fixing someone else or bearing the weight of their worries in their place. It’s standing by their side while they learn and break and relearn, it’s holding their hand when they fall. It’s wrapping them close then letting them go, a shove in the wrong direction because sometimes traversing the wrong path leads you to the right one. It’s a missed phone call and a knock at the door and an apology and a kiss. 

Lee Suho doesn’t say _I love you,_ but he thinks it. He thinks it and thinks it and holds the words close, and years later, when Seojun is carefully packing his guitar away or plucking through a rack of clothes for a stage or singing Suho’s songs in the low, lovely tenor that Suho still calls his treasure, he says them over and over until his mouth dries out and Seojun kisses him, whispering them back.

**Author's Note:**

> everyday i simp for han seojun and lim heegyeong. please. anyways, thanks for reading & as always, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> tumblr / twt: @noctelle


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